And it’s all your fault!

Several readers have noticed that lately we’ve had a plague of whiny, entitled, childish Men’s Rights Activists in the comments. They’re usually clueless and petty and annoying…and now I’ve found out why. And the source of my information is unimpeachable: it’s Whirled Nut Daily.

According to Kay Hymowitz, whose new book, “Manning Up,” was featured prominently in the Wall Street Journal in February, “legions of frustrated young women” are dealing with a new crisis in America: modern men refuse to grow up.

It appears the 21st-century male is living a kind of extended adolescence. In the past, it was assumed men would receive a high-school diploma or college degree, then get married and settle down to the responsibilities of work and family life. Today, young men “hang out in a novel sort of limbo,” keeping adulthood at a distance as they enjoy a lifestyle that demands few, if any, obligations.

Exactly! Well, not all men…but the spoiled ones who demand that everyone respect their privileges and pay attention to their problems, which are the only problems of any importance, certainly are infantile. And they’re always turning around and blaming their shortcomings on someone else, especially the women.

Of course, since it is WND, you know exactly where it is going.

The question is why — and how — did this happen? And the answer is simple: feminism.

Why have some men turned into whiny bitches who blame women for everything? Easy. Blame the women.

I don’t think I’ll bother to read Ms. Hymowitz’s book.

I get email

I think this one was more of a wrong number.

Found you online and had a question…

Hi, my name is Susan Dahl. I did a search online for Christians and I came across you. It would be great to have more info about what you are sharing online for the benefit and help of others.

I am writing because I would like to find some new friends who have a walk with the Lord in the Puget Sound area. Even in the Northwest, there are still some of us out there!

I look forward to hearing from you.

God bless you,

Susan Dahl

It’s OK. I’ve decided to name my penis “The Lord” just so these spammy Christian emails will make a little more sense.

Praise the Lord!

Fair & balanced…and a sign of the apocalypse

Dang. Now I’m quoted on the Fox News website, as the guy who called the bacteria from outer space “garbage”. Yay, me.

Unfortunately, most of the story there is an acceptance of the excuses from the crackpot Journal of Cosmology, with “more measured” responses from a collection of sources apparently vetted by the journal. It’s “he said, she said” journalism again, with me on one side and Frank Tipler on the other.

Sorry, people. Brace yourself for Murdoch’s minions to show up in the comments.

Rio. Carnaval. Darwin?

I’m sitting here in Minnesota, anticipating another midweek snowstorm that’s on the way, and what do I learn? If I were in Rio de Janeiro I could be watching Carnaval. Heck, I could be dancing in the streets with a big fruity drink in my hand, blowing kisses to the lovely girls in exotic costumes.

Maybe I could even write it off. Look at this: one of the clubs is celebrating Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle with an hour-long parade. Here’s the announcement from the club.

Science still commemorates 150 years of the first publication of THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, the book that caused a true world revolution with the Theory of Evolution. The adventure lived by the English naturalist Charles Darwin on board the H.M.S. Beagle, the British ship that in approximately five years travelled around the world and had the mission of mapping South America, where it visited ports in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. And visited the Galapagos Islands, in Ecuador, which awoke the young scientist to the elaboration of his future theories. This scientific expedition will be relived by the samba school Union of the Island of Governor, in the same spirit of adventure present in the themes of past carnivals. The plot, being much more than a simple sea voyage, will travel through the history of the origin of the life and the evolution of species by means of the NATURAL SELECTION. The presentation will follow the sequence outlined by Darwin, one of the fathers of modern biology and ecological conscience, and show how groups descend from others, building a ramification he compares with a TREE OF LIFE. In Darwin’s theory, man loses the status of great master of the world, superior to all, showing that all life is related through a common ancestor. Its central message is that it falls on us a larger responsibility for the preservation of the planet.

It’s perfect. I’m sure it would please the old Victorian gentleman very much to know that his work is being celebrated with a grand party complete with 3500 participants, lots of scantily dressed women, brilliant costumes, and street-shaking music.

If you get the Brazilian station linked to above, you could watch it yourself at 7pm Eastern time tonight. I don’t even get that much.

NASA speaks out boldly on the ‘bacteria from space’ claims

That was sarcasm in the title, everyone. NASA has released a public statement in which they gingerly edge away from Hoover’s paper.

NASA is a scientific and technical agency committed to a culture of openness with the media and public. While we value the free exchange of ideas, data, and information as part of scientific and technical inquiry, NASA cannot stand behind or support a scientific claim unless it has been peer-reviewed or thoroughly examined by other qualified experts. This paper was submitted in 2007 to the International Journal of Astrobiology. However, the peer review process was not completed for that submission. NASA also was unaware of the recent submission of the paper to the Journal of Cosmology or of the paper’s subsequent publication. Additional questions should be directed to the author of the paper.

In other words, “What paper? We don’t know nothin’ about that paper.”

It’s disappointing cover-their-butts bureaucratese from an organization that, as a science and engineering institution, ought to have a rather more demanding attitude about rigor and evidence. Oh, well. It’s one small step for a bureaucracy; one giant leap…which a bureaucrat won’t take.

By the way, my phone has been busy over this nonsense today. I don’t quite know what it is, but for some reason the initial claim of “Life in space!” struck a chord with many people, and the fact that a number of scientists are quickly replying with “No, it isn’t” is making some people very, very angry. We’re also seeing a lot of that infuriated rejection of the rejection in the comments here.

I think many confuse their wish to see evidence of extraterrestrial life with the evidence for extraterrestrial life. Personally, I’d love to see the discovery of life that originated elsewhere other than our world — that would provide a radically different insight into evolution. I know there has been evidence of organic molecules in space, and I suspect that life does exist on other planets (possibly even other planets in our solar system), but I’m not going to accept a claim of discovery without adequate evidence.

And I’m sorry, but Hoover’s paper is poorly written, sloppy work that uses a non-biologist’s impressions of complex textures in a mineral to imply morphological evidence for fossilized bacteria. You’d think NASA would know better: we had a similar phenomenon a few years ago, in which people claimed to see a “face on Mars,” a claim that NASA effectively debunked. This is the same thing. It’s a shame that NASA isn’t being as quick to dismiss bad science this time around.

Go to Dublin…for the science!

Since the World Atheist Conference is in Dublin this June, you should go just to test this scientific conclusion: the Guinness does taste better in Ireland. I think so, too. So here’s the experiment: buy a glass of Guinness in your airport bar, fly to Ireland, drink some more there. Attend the atheist conference to cleanse the palate, as it were. Drink more Guinness, get on the plane and fly home, and have another one.

Compare.

So now you have another reason to go. It’s an Experiment!

Why is it your favorite mosque, Dr Hasan?

Religion is toxic. Here’s a case in London in which both the acute and the chronic poison are in clear view: a Moslem scientist has been threatened with murder over his views on evolution. He tried to explain how Islam and evolution are compatible.

Masjid Tawhid is a prominent mosque which also runs one of the country’s largest sharia courts, the Islamic Sharia Council. In January, Dr Hasan delivered a lecture there detailing why he felt the theory of evolution and Islam were compatible — a position that is not unusual among many Islamic scholars with scientific backgrounds. But the lecture was interrupted by men he described as “fanatics” who distributed leaflets claiming that “Darwin is blasphemy”.

“One man came up to me during the lecture and said ‘You are an apostate and should be killed’,” Dr Hasan told The Independent. “I want to go back — I’ve been going to the mosque for 25 years. It is my favourite mosque in London, and I have been active in the community for a long time. I hope my positive contribution will outweigh their feelings towards me.”

There’s one evil: zealots who think their superstitions justify threatening death to anyone who disagrees with them. That’s the obvious one.

But there’s another, subtler poison at work here. Hasan has apologized for speaking the truth about the science; he canceled a lecture out of fear for his life (quite reasonable), but then goes on to beg for readmission to a mosque filled with blind, hateful fanatics who want to murder scientists like him.

Why?

Hasan is also deeply deluded, in a nicer way, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s blind to the conflicts between his science and his religion, and to the even more immediate conflicts between himself and his local culture. That ignorance is likely to get him killed, or perhaps more probably as his behavior is currently demonstrating, likely to get him to abandon reason and science altogether.